PRISON STAFF SHORTAGES

A remarkable article intodays Guardian quoting the outgoing Chairman of the Prison Governors Association commenting on the dangerously low staff levels in our prisons.
Sadly very little coverage elsewhere. As usual risons and prisoners right at the bottom of the agenda. When will society wake up and realise that prisoners are people who for one reason or another have come into conflict with the law but they are still people and deserve to be treated as such.
I know, as I say in my book A Life of Sentences which is out now and available from Amazon or the publishers Olympiapublishers.com or in all od book shops, all my adult life I was in conflict with the law not because of what I was doing but because once convicted aged 16 years no one saw fit to forgive or try and understand. I desperately sought help on so many occasions simply to be ignored. It wasn’t until above thirty years later that a prison chaplain, to whom I shall be forever indebted, looked beyond the paperwork and treated me as a person that things turned around for me.
We, as a caring society have to change our perceptions and look at prisoners as a person, not just a number or a case.
There are some truly wonderful organisations trying to break down the barriers and we really need to help and encourage where we can but all their efforts will come to nought if we don’t start and look at offenders differently. I am not making light of offences, there are some truly horrendous crimes comitted but even those crimes are committed by a person not a virtual being. If we are ever to make any positive changes we must treat all prisoners as individuals not just one of a generic group pigeon holed as a prisoner.
I know that will never happen, prisoners don’t equal votes so it is easier for the politicians to ignore them indeed use them to create profits but without a fundamental change in attitudes nothing will change!!